How to study smarter, not longer: from Sec 2 scare to 90 RP

More hours don’t get you better grades. Better hours do. The students who do best test themselves instead of rereading, spread their revision out instead of cramming, and explain ideas out loud until the gaps show. That’s the whole system, and it’s a technique you can learn, not a talent you’re born with.

I know because I learned it the hard way. In Sec 2, I came within a mark of failing Maths and having to retake the exam. That was the turning point. I went on to get 90 rank points at A-levels (the maximum under the old system), then a First at Oxford. My brain didn’t change in between. My method did.

Why doesn’t studying more hours give better grades?

Because time is an input, and your grade measures what you can pull out of your head in an exam hall. The two are linked far more loosely than anyone admits.

The biggest thing I got wrong in lower sec was assuming hard work and time spent always turn into better results. I’d spend hours rereading my notes and highlighting them, and feel very productive. Then the paper arrived and my head was blank.

The research explains why. A major review of ten common study techniques rated rereading and highlighting as low utility, and rated practice testing and spaced-out practice as high utility (Dunlosky et al., Psychological Science in the Public Interest; plain-English summary from the AFT). My two favourite habits were among the least effective ones. (The numbers behind this are in active recall and spaced repetition, step by step.)

Rereading feels good because the page looks familiar. Familiar isn’t remembered.

How did I go from nearly failing Sec 2 Maths to 90 RP?

I stopped treating studying as time traded for results. I started treating it as a game: get the most results for the least time and effort.

Some context, because it matters. I’d got into Hwa Chong’s Integrated Programme through Math DSA, so lower sec was a steep fall. I was in the Gifted Education Programme but didn’t qualify for the gifted math class. I failed papers. I grasped things slowly and felt like one of the least intelligent people in my class.

Then came Sec 2, and the Maths paper I came within a mark of failing. My parents were disappointed. My teachers still believed in me, but they pushed me to put in more effort. That’s when I started taking school seriously.

So when things turned around, I couldn’t credit talent. It had to be technique.

What did I actually change after Sec 2?

I threw out rereading and highlighting, and switched to two low-tech habits: paper blurting and the Leitner system.

• Paper blurting. Close everything. On a blank sheet, write down all you remember about a topic. Then open your notes and mark what you missed. The gaps are what you study next.
• The Leitner system. Flashcards in a row of boxes. Get a card right and it moves to the next box, which you review less often. Get it wrong and it goes back to the first box.

I reviewed at 1, 3, 7 and 14 days. No app, no colour-coding. Paper, boxes and a calendar.

Seeing studying as a game changed what I looked for. If it’s a grind, your only lever is more hours, and you run out of those fast. If it’s a game, you hunt for the moves that pay off most. The returns aren’t linear. Get the method right and it compounds, because everything you’ve properly retained makes the next topic easier to learn.

What are the most effective study methods?

Three, used together: test yourself, space it out, and teach it back. I call it the Test–Space–Teach loop.

1. Test (active recall). Close the book and pull the answer out of your own head. Blurting, flashcards, past-paper questions with no notes open. Testing beats rereading by a wide margin, and students who reread feel more confident while remembering less. Feeling ready and being ready are different things.

2. Space (spaced repetition). Come back to the same material over days and weeks, instead of in one long session. That’s what the Leitner boxes did for me. Cramming works for tomorrow’s quiz. It fails you at prelims.

3. Teach (the Feynman technique). Explain the idea out loud in plain words, as if to a younger cousin. Wherever you stall, or reach for jargon you can’t unpack, there’s a gap. Ohio State’s learning centre has a good short guide (Dennis Learning Center).

Each step covers a weakness in the others:

Run all three and very little slips through. The research, the full review schedule and a printable planner are in active recall and spaced repetition, set up step by step.

Why does this work so well for Singapore exams?

Because our national exams reward what you can retrieve under time pressure, and retention can be engineered. It isn’t God-given.

You can grumble about that. I did. Or you can use it. A system that rewards memory and retention is, in one sense, fair: the skill it tests is one you can train. Understanding still matters, especially at A-levels, but in almost every subject the last mile is getting the right ideas and the right words out of your head in a timed paper.

How many hours a day should I study?

There’s no magic number, and hunting for one is the trap. A better question is: how much did I retrieve today?

An hour spent testing yourself on last week’s topics beats three hours of rereading. When I switched methods, my sessions got shorter and more intense. The time I freed up went into things that helped me grow, like leading the iSpark Consortium council in Sec 3–4 and, later, a CCA in JC.

So measure output, not input. At the end of each session, write one line: what can I answer now that I couldn’t this morning? If that line is empty, the hours didn’t count.

How do I stop cramming?

Plan ahead, so the spacing happens without you having to remember it. Cramming isn’t a willpower problem. It’s a calendar problem.

A minimum version:

1. Every Sunday, list the topics you covered at school that week.
2. Put a short recall session for each one on two or three later days.
3. Keep a running list of everything you got wrong. That list is next week’s revision.

Can you overdo the system?

Yes. The system itself can become the procrastination.

It’s tempting to spend a whole holiday building a colour-coded Notion dashboard, or making 2,000 flashcards you never review. That’s rereading in a nicer outfit. Build proper foundations, start from first principles, and keep the tools boring. My setup was a stack of blank paper, some card boxes and a calendar.

If your system takes longer to maintain than the studying it organises, cut it.

Who does this not work for?

• If you can’t follow the lessons at all, testing won’t fix it yet. Rebuild understanding first (ask, rewatch, get help), then start testing.
• Practice-heavy subjects like Math need lots of problem-solving, not just recalling facts. Content-heavy subjects need a structure before you memorise. I break this down in how to study Math vs Econ.
• If you’re exhausted, a better method won’t rescue you. Sleep and doing fewer things will. I nearly burnt out in JC from saying yes to everything, and wrote about it in burnout in JC.